Whilst we looked he slowly turned, and, with bent head and lingering steps, as though in deep contemplation, passed out of sight. Nothing remained but the empty doorway with a vision of arches beyond; a few ruined walls stained with the marks of centuries, to which patches of moss and drooping creepers and hardy ferns added grace and charm. We were alone, surrounded by intense quiet and repose. Sunshine was over all, casting deep shadows. No sound disturbed the stillness, not even the echo of the monk's receding footsteps. So silent and motionless had been his coming and going, we asked ourselves whether he was in truth flesh and blood or a mid-day visitor from the land of shadows. How remote, how out of the world it all was!
Suddenly, as we looked upwards, an eagle took majestic flight from one of the mountain peaks, and, hovering in the blue ether, seemed seeking for prey. But it was not the time of the lambs, and with a long, sweeping wing, it passed across the valley to an opposite range of hills.
The great church was before us with its dome, of Roman design and sufficiently common-place. But, after all, what mattered? Its effects and those of the hideous Hospederia were lost in their wonderful surroundings, just as a drop of water is lost in the ocean.
On entering the church this comparison disappeared. There was an expanse about its aisles, largeness and breadth in the high-domed roof, that produced a certain dignity, yet without grace and refinement. No magic and mystery surrounded them, and the dim religious light was the result, not of rich stained glass admitting prismatic streams, but of an obscurity cast by the shadows of Mons Serratus. For great effects one had to go back in imagination to the days when the monks were many and assembled at night for service. It is easy to picture the impressive scene. Beyond the ever-closed screen, within the great choir, a thousand kneeling, penitential figures chanting the midnight mass, their voices swelling upward in mighty volume; the church just sufficiently lighted to lend the utmost mystery to the occasion; a ghostly hour and a ghostly assemblage of men whose lives have become mere shadows. On great days countless candles lighted up the aisles and faintly outlined the more distant recesses. The fine-toned organ pealed forth its harmony, shaking the building with its diapasons and awakening wonderful echoes in the far-off dome.